Branded Male

A gym in Paris

Swimming has always been my fitness choice. But in Paris everything closes for August. Including, ludicrously enough, most public swimming pools. (If you think that's stupid, a lot of ice cream parlors close too.)

The upshot of this was that I finally shelled out and joined a gym. That's not as easy as you might imagine, because Club Med has a virtual monopoly on gyms here. And most of them are overcrowded. Then I discovered that Club Med also has an upmarket brand called Club Med Waou. The word Waou roughly translates as "wow!" or "fab!" or maybe "phwoar!" Because it's a bit pricier to join, it's more tastefully decorated and far less busy. And there's one near chez moi.

Club Med Waou Grands Boulevards turned out to be gloriously Parisian. Decorated in soothing tones of taupe and granite, it resembles a cross between a designer store and a gourmet restaurant. Its clients exercise nonchalantly, in branded sportswear, without grunting. They glow rather than perspire.

I decided to take on a coach. His name is Christof, and his catchphrase is "Encore quinze!" ("Another fifteen!"). In reality, Christof is relaxed and lighthearted. But in my imagination, he is a drill sergeant for the French Foriegn Legion. "Alors, you lazy Engleesh scuum," he sneers, "you weel leeft zeeze weights until zee moossels bourst, compris?!" And then he makes me do eighty abdominal crunches with pebbles in my mouth.

In fact my goal is merely to strengthen the muscles that will make me a better swimmer. Not exactly Michael Phelps, just me with fuel injection. Anyway, the Branded Female has forbidden me to try for a body like Daniel Craig's ("Le brute," she cries, having preferred Pierce Brosnan). So I will not be ripped. I will merely be taught. Which is not bad, after all.

Jocks and jellyfish

I went back to the swimming pool this morning after a fairly long absence of about two weeks. I must say I found it a hard slog: I swam like a tramp steamer wallowing in heavy seas. Exercise is a like a foreign language: if you don't use it all the time you start to forget useful phrases.
The task wasn't helped by the fact that the pool was fairly busy. The swimmers there can be divided into two camps: the jocks and the jellyfish. The jocks are athletic guys who scythe through the water for ten lengths like Olympic champs, only to rest at the side for ten minutes afterwards. The jellyfish are the elderly and infirm. They perform something approximating a backstroke, but which is actually a flailing backwards lurch. Each stroke is followed by a brief pause for contemplation, as if they are considering whether or not to drown.
I fall somewhere between the two camps: a medium-speed front crawler. So I'm forced to slalom through the jellyfish while trying to avoid a head-on collision with a jock.
The other peculiarity of my local pool is that the showers are mixed. Yes, boys! We're in Paris, remember. Unfortunately, any hint of eroticism is negated by the fact that most of the clients look as if they've been sewn together from half-deflated pink ballons. OK, I once saw a slender girl with a butterfly tattoo soaping herself very carefully; but that was so long ago it could have been a dream.